1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data recording and reproducing apparatus which records and reproduces a digital audio and/or visual (video) signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, for editing work of video data, audio data, etc., there has been adopted the method of connecting a plurality of VTR apparatuses (video tape recorders), reproducing the video data etc. by the respective VTR apparatuses to find the required video images, and connecting the located plurality of video data to one video data.
When the editing of the video data is carried out by using the above-mentioned method, however, it suffers from the disadvantages that the VTR apparatus can perform basically only a sequential access and, in addition, a long time is taken for the editing work since the data transfer rate when a plurality of video data are connected to one video data is restricted by the reproduction data rate of the VTR apparatus.
Further, there has been a demand for enabling editing of the video data etc. at the site where news was shot. However, sometimes it is not possible to provide a number of VTR devices at the camera site and therefore it is not possible to meet this demand in many cases. On the other hand, even if a plurality of VTR devices can be provided, it greatly reduces the mobility of the news crew it they have to carry a plurality of VTR devices together with the camera equipment.
Moreover, also in a case where the edited video data etc. are to be transferred, it suffers from the disadvantages that the transmission data rate is restricted by the reproduction data rate of the VTR device, the transmission can be carried out only with a low transmission data rate, and the method of transmission of the video data from the camera site to the broadcast station is restricted. It is not impossible to change the reproduction data rate of the VTR device to any value in accordance with the transmission data rate. However, it suffers from the disadvantage in that such a VTR device would have to be a special one which has a more complex structure than the usual VTR device and is more expensive in cost.